


just haven't met you yet

by youareiron_andyouarestrong



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 01:32:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5608687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youareiron_andyouarestrong/pseuds/youareiron_andyouarestrong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>interactions between everyone's favorite Chosen One and the ace pilot of the Resistance</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. i guess it's half timing, and the other half's luck

Rey is good at waiting.

That’s all she ever did on Jakku, she waited. Waited for new ruins to sift through, waited for the day she brought something that would bring in more than quarter rations, waited for her parents to come back.

She is prepared to wait by Finn’s bedside for as long as she has to.

But she can’t. General Organa has already told her gently, firmly, that once the _Millennium Falcon_ is repaired, she has to go. She needs to find Luke Skywalker and begin Jedi training. “You can learn more from him than you ever could here,” the older woman tells her. Rey looks around at the Resistance base, people and species and landscapes she never could have dreamed of and thinks, _More?_

She’s waiting by Finn as repairs to the _Falcon_ are being done (Rey wanted to do oversee them herself, but General Organa assured her she would see it done properly and Chewie confirmed it). She watches the monitor anxiously. 

She doesn’t ever expect to have company during her vigils, until one day, she does.

“Hey,” says a man with pilot’s bars on his shirt sleeve, sitting down besides her like it’s the most casual thing in the world, “how is he?”

Rey blinks once and looks back at the monitor, at Finn’s motionless form. “No change,” she says. “Not since they brought him in.”

The man releases a tired sigh, running a hand through his hair. “Dumb kid,” he grumbles halfheartedly. “What was he thinking, taking on Ren?”

“He was protecting me,” says Rey, half defensively, ready to protect Finn against the condemnations of this stranger, when the stranger turns to her and smiles, eyes crinkling at the corners and _stars above,_ he’s handsome. Even _she_ can tell that. 

“I know,” he says. “I think the kid would’ve flown halfway across the galaxy to get you back. I’m Poe Dameron, by the way.”

Rey nods, studying him. She’s been on the base long enough to hear his name crop in conversations everywhere. Poe Dameron, best pilot in the Resistance, led the attack on Starkiller, General Organa’s preferred agent. BB-8′s owner, the one the droid was so devoted to. But up until now, she’s never exchanged a word with him. “I’m Rey,” she offers and after a beat remembers to offer him her hand to shake. He takes it easily, not noticing or ignoring her momentary hesitation, and she notes there are callouses on his palm and grease stains on his fingers, the mark of a man who knows his engines. This, more than anything else, puts her a little more at ease. 

“BB-8 told me about you,” Poe goes on. “So did Finn. Wouldn’t shut up about you, in fact,” and he sounds so immensely, unbearably fond it squeezes Rey’s heart. “You fought off thugs trying to steal BB-8, you flew the Falcon, you know machines like the back of your hand, you beat Kylo Ren in a lightsaber duel. Not a bad day’s work.”

Rey can feel heat in her cheeks. “I’m not that impressive, I promise.”

“Sure you are,” he says so easily Rey stares at him. “You’re flying the _Falcon_ , you’ve got a lightsaber handed down to you from Luke Skywalker. You’re going to train to be a bloody _Jedi,_ star’s sake. Pretty damn impressive, kid.”

Rey narrows her eyes at him, just a little. “You don’t look that much older than me.”  

He grins at this, clearly pleased by her response. “I am ancient in wisdom,” he says so agreeably Rey feels the corners of her mouth twitch in spite of herself. “But what about you? You’re leaving us soon aren’t you?” 

“Once the _Falcon_ is ready yes,” Rey answers softly and they both turn to look at Finn again. 

Nothing changes. 

Rey sighs and rests her head against the edge of the bed. “He gets so hurt when I’m not around to look after him,” Rey murmurs unhappily and Poe huffs a tired laugh. 

“And to think he was so worried about _you_ getting hurt,” he says with a weary smile. He puts a hand on Rey’s shoulder and squeezes once, gently. “I’ll look after him while you’re gone,” he says. “Keep an eye on him, make sure he’s okay. I won’t let him go haring off to fight anymore Sith lords, I promise you that.”

A weak laugh escapes Rey before she can stop it. “Thank you,” she says, reaching up to give his own fingers a quick squeeze in return. “Please tell him–tell him I waited. For as long as I could. And I’ll be back.”  

“Sure,” says Poe immediately. “I’ll do that.” He smiles at her again, gentle and kind and understanding and some of the weight on Rey’s shoulders lift, just a little. Just enough. 

They keep their vigil just a little while longer, until Poe’s called away and Rey goes to check on the _Falcon_. Poe salutes her before he goes. “Fly sharp kid,” he says. “And shoot straight.”   

Rey flicks him a salute of her own. “I do that already,” she retorts and his laughter follows her on the way out, warm and amused and pleased. 


	2. and i know that we can be so amazing, and being in your life is gonna change me

She has bad dreams.

Sadly, bad dreams in general are not new to Rey’s experience. Back on Jakku she had nightmares of drowning, of starving, of lying out in the desert sun watching a ship fly away and vanishing into a pitiless blue sky. but now, now they’re layered with crimson light, cold hands inside her mind looking for fears and weaknesses, of snow and cold and the earth being split in half like a rotten fruit, watching a body fall and vanish down a bottomless well. of reaching out and falling. 

She wakes up in a blind panic on one of those nights, goes outside and looks at the sky until her heart stops feeling like it’s going to pound it’s way right out of her chest. 

She doesn’t ever expect to have company on these nights, much like when she keeps vigil over Finn. like then, she is wrong too.

The pilot, Poe Dameron, he comes and stands besides her, watching the sky as well, the moon offering quiet witness. “I can’t sleep either sometimes,” he offers unexpectedly. “I go back in that cell with that monster digging in my head.” 

Rey can’t call Kylo Ren a monster, after catching glimpses of a mind so fractured with light and dark she wonders why he hasn’t shattered into pieces yet and remembering a boy that must have had the whole promise of the galaxy set before him, but she understands. She goes back to the cell too and a battle that every time she relives in her dreams, she’s not sure she can win. 

They watch the sky together and sometimes, just sometimes, Rey leans into him and breathes in oil, metal and warmth.

* * *

   BB-8 swears more than any droid Rey’s ever encountered and frankly, she’s both impressed and unamused. Poe just laughs and tells her about the times he’s meet droids and races that teach his droid all kinds of new curses. “I should scrub out your translator with sand,” Rey tells BB-8 and the droid just beeps and squawks indignantly. Poe chuckles and hands Rey tool after tool, gets underfoot when she’s trying to sort out the _Falcon’s_ engines, telling all kind of outrageous stories about the Resistance missions he’s run, the kinds of shenanigans Han Solo used to get it into and the times General Organa had to get him out and sometimes it hurts to hear it, but it’s a good hurt, somehow, it reminds her that good things are never truly lost. 

* * *

Poe Dameron is a hotshot pilot.

Poe Dameron is a hotshot pilot with a grin like a solar flare, and the Resistance is pretty evenly split on loving him and hating him. “What can you fly?” Rey asks him once and he says, without a trace of arrogance, “I can fly _anything.”_

“So can I,” she retorts. “Care to try me?”

Rey wipes the floor with him on their first race. She half expects him to be indignant, or at least demand for a rematch, but when he pops out of X-Wing the first thing he yells across the runway at her is, “You’re teaching me that trick!” He _delights_ in learning what she knows. He takes to calling her “ _Madame Jedi”_ in a tone of such gleeful teasing Rey can’t always muster up the urge to swat him and say, “Don’t call me that _hotshot_ ,” and he just laughs.  

The first time he says it seriously, with no trace of a smile in his voice or eyes is when she returns from training with Luke Skywalker, a lightsaber humming by her side and her hair down in a braid for once. 

He doesn’t bow. Not exactly. But he dips his head to her, in respect, in acknowledgment and says, “Welcome back Madame Jedi,” and then proceeds to _ruin_ it by adding cheerfully, “Come to save us all your high-and-mighty-savior-ness?” 

Rey doesn’t regret smacking him with her staff in reply. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for tumblr prompts.


End file.
